I am a PS3 owner who is very interested in using the system to take files from my computer and watch/view/listen to them via my PS3. I have not had much luck, thusfar, so I wanted to see if anyone out there has been able to make this work. I have used a video converter found here on the forums (PS3Video9) to convert various videos into MPG2, MPG4 (which the PS3 SHOULD support), etc., as well as JPEGS from my digi cam, and mp3s. I put samples of each of these on my USB drive (only 512 MB) and hooked it into one of the USB slots on the PS3. While my PS3 is able to recognize that a USB device is connected, when browsing through the menus (video, photo, music), it shows "No titles" in each section. Does anyone know why this is the case?

In addition, I have tried hooking the empty USB drive into the system, and using the System tab, trying to format the drive. I get no results with that either.

I really want this to work, and am wondering if there are any solutions out there. If I cant get this particular USB drive to work, do you think these would work (better)?

2GB USB Flash drive:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7366566&st=7366566&type=product&id=1122653260124&ref=10&loc=01

And this is very appealing, as I seem to ALWAYS be running low on HD space on my computer...250 GB external HD:
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=7969585&type=product&id=1153997294349&ref=10&loc=01

Did you press the triangle button?

Did you press the triangle button?

While I'm now out of town and away from my PS3 *tear*, I'm pretty sure that I did press the triangle button to try and bring up and options, but I dont think anything did. What is supposed to show up when you press triangle?

Any thoughts on the external HD?

i have an external hd. in order for it to work, it needs to be formatted to fat32. i use my 160 right now and its so nice to just go through all of my music and pick things. however, every time you reconnect the drive it has to look for everything again. i think i am going to get a 160gb 2.5" sata internal drive for music and just use my external for hd movies. the ps3 does play those just fine :).

i have an external hd. in order for it to work, it needs to be formatted to fat32. i use my 160 right now and its so nice to just go through all of my music and pick things. however, every time you reconnect the drive it has to look for everything again. i think i am going to get a 160gb 2.5" sata internal drive for music and just use my external for hd movies. the ps3 does play those just fine :).


So right. I had my external usb ntfs formatted and had to reformat in fat32 :( but hey it worked :)

What about iPod nanos? I copied some jpeg images plus movie & game trailers to my nano & then hooked it up to my PS3. Nothing happened. I went through all the PS3 menus to see if I had to have something turned on or off. I'm almost positive that I read an article from a gaming mag that said this was doable.

It would be easier if I could get my PS3 to notice the bluetooth connection on my powerbook & copied the pics over directly. It seems to only notice controllers & headphones.

I was using a USB drive and couldn't get anything to show. Reformatted to FAT32 per this thread and VIOLA! It now works, but only after I hit the triangle button. Before hitting it show "No tracks". Why is that?

Don't forget to create the VIDEO, MUSIC, PHOTO folders on your drive. I couldn't get any of my music to work until I did this.

Don't forget to create the VIDEO, MUSIC, PHOTO folders on your drive. I couldn't get any of my music to work until I did this.

You don't need to do that. Just toggle the setting that shows all files instead and you'll be able to see them.

i have that exact 2 gb drive and it worked fine right out of the box with both my ps3 and vaio.

fat blows, i hope a firmware update lets us use ntfs

Can you take the thumb drive back? I just bought a PNY 1gig thumb drive over the weekend for $20 at best buy, a 2gig would cost you alittle over $40. I was able to download update version 1.32 onto it from a friends computer (he's running windows xp) and was able to install it from the drive with no problem, I didnt need to format anything. I did however have some mpegs and an mp3 that my PS3 didnt see as being there.

I'm using the My Book right now and it's perfect. I just synced my Zen with it through WMP11 and it used the folders from Artist > Album > Song. Perfect!

I'm using the My Book right now and it's perfect. I just synced my Zen with it through WMP11 and it used the folders from Artist > Album > Song. Perfect!

did you have to format the HD to fat 32? also, what happens when you then reconnect the my to your pc? do you have to reformat it agaon and lose everything in the HD? I don't get it - can you plase explain how you use the HD back and forth between pc and ps3? Thanks!

I'm using the My Book right now and it's perfect. I just synced my Zen with it through WMP11 and it used the folders from Artist > Album > Song. Perfect!

did you have to format the HDD to fat 32? also, what happens when you then reconnect the my to your pc? do you have to reformat it agaon and lose everything in the HDD? I don't get it - can you plase explain how you use the HDD back and forth between pc and ps3? Thanks!

I'm using the My Book right now and it's perfect. I just synced my Zen with it through WMP11 and it used the folders from Artist > Album > Song. Perfect!

did you have to format the HDD to fat 32? also, what happens when you then reconnect the my book to your pc? do you have to reformat it agaon and lose everything in the HDD? I don't get it - can you plase explain how you use the HDD back and forth between pc and ps3? Thanks!

I'm using the My Book right now and it's perfect. I just synced my Zen with it through WMP11 and it used the folders from Artist > Album > Song. Perfect!

did you have to format the HDD to fat 32? also, what happens when you then reconnect the my book to your pc? do you have to reformat it agaon and lose everything in the HDD? I don't get it - can you plase explain how you use the HDD back and forth between pc and ps3? Thanks!

I'm using the My Book right now and it's perfect. I just synced my Zen with it through WMP11 and it used the folders from Artist > Album > Song. Perfect!

did you have to format the HDD to fat 32? also, what happens when you then reconnect the my book to your pc? do you have to reformat it agaon and lose everything in the HDD? I don't get it - can you plase explain how you use the HDD back and forth between pc and ps3? Thanks!

once more... with feeling this time.

I hooked up my external USB hard drive to my PS3 and the music mp3 files appear file but none of the photos or videos appear. I installed ps3converter-9 and converted some of the video files to other supported formats for the ps3 and still I get error "there are no titles"

I am not at home, so I need to check if my hard drive is fat32,

Does anyone know why I would only see mp3's and not the other files.

I found this thread very informative and thought I would share my experience so far.

did you hit triangle and then show all? thats how you have to do it. Otherwise, you would have to have folders named as PS3 expects them to be named...